According to climate statistics, 2026 currently ranks third after 2024 and 2025. However, the combination of anthropogenic climate change and an extremely powerful El Niño could push this year to first place by the end of the year, writes [Phys.org](https://phys.org/news/2026-08-summer-isnt-el-nino-scientists.html). Even if this does not happen, many researchers consider it almost inevitable that 2027 will be even warmer. Climatologist at Berkeley Earth, Zeke Hausfather, noted that the world's attention to climate change has weakened in recent years due to wars and other crises. > "The world has been burning in different senses. Now the world is burning again — this time due to climate change, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore it. The situation will only worsen." According to Hausfather's estimates, the probability that 2026 will become the hottest year on record has already risen to 35%. For comparison, in March he assessed it at only 7%. Former NASA chief climatologist James Hansen shares a similar view, believing that this year still has the potential to surpass the record set in 2024. One of the main factors scientists cite is the record warming of the world's oceans. By May, the average sea surface temperature had already matched the highs of 2024, and since June, it has been breaking records almost daily. Since oceans cover more than 70% of the Earth's surface, their warming affects the average global temperature with a delay of about a month and a half. According to the European climate service Copernicus, about 82% of the world's ocean surface is currently experiencing marine heatwaves. At the same time, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States assessed about a month ago the probability that 2026 would be the hottest year at only 0.1%. After analyzing July data, the agency intends to revise its forecast. Scientists explain the changing estimates by the increasingly alarming forecasts regarding the strength of El Niño. El Niño is a periodic warming of the equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean, which raises the average temperature of the planet and intensifies weather anomalies in many regions of the world. Most forecasts suggest that the current El Niño could become the strongest on record. However, climatologists emphasize that the current extreme weather events cannot be explained solely by El Niño. > "The main reason for the record warming is climate change. Its contribution is significantly greater than that of El Niño, which adds only one or two tenths of a degree to the long-term trend," noted Climate Central climatologist Zachary Labe. According to him, the oceans continue to accumulate vast amounts of heat retained by greenhouse gases, and El Niño merely facilitates its release. James Hansen believes that the pace of global warming may accelerate. In his opinion, this is aided by a reduction in industrial pollution, which previously partially reflected solar radiation and masked some of the warming, as well as a potentially higher sensitivity of the climate to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. Scientists particularly highlight the dangers of not only daytime but also nighttime heatwaves. High temperatures at night prevent the body from recovering, increasing health risks and reducing productivity. Samantha Burgess, head of global climate strategy at Copernicus, noted that several exceptional heatwaves have already occurred in Europe in recent months. > "European heatwaves are not isolated events. Severe heat has also been observed in North America, extremely high temperatures in South America, and devastating heatwaves in India." Princeton University climatologist Michael Oppenheimer emphasized that the current events fully align with what scientists have been warning about for many years. > "This is a vivid picture not only of the future, as we used to say, but also of what climate change is already doing today. There is no doubt that climate change has increased the risk of wildfires and the likelihood of exceptionally hot, severe, and even unprecedented summer seasons worldwide.